A videotape is useless without a VCR. A VCR is useless without a videotape. Inside the videotape is:
- Two spools that hold the tape
- A spring-loaded door that keeps the tape safe
- Steel pins that prevent tape scratches
- Rollers that direct the tape
- An anti-static component that prevents dust buildup
- Two spring-loaded locks so the tape stays in place
- A lot of potential
The videotape manufacturers make sure those seven elements all work together to build on that potential. Do you remember that dinosaur age and how finicky videotapes were? If one element breaks, the whole system fails.
After the manufacturer is done, it’s up to the VCR and videotape owner to take good care of it.
Do you take good care of your business? We know you have countless responsibilities on your plate. But do your promotion and selling strategies align with your overall goals? Do your product management and marketing information management efforts show you what to expect? Do your pricing, financing, and distribution methods align with the whole package?
You know that marketing goes way back, just like videotapes. But there’s a key difference: Somehow, we go on without videotapes; marketing efforts matter now more than ever.
Why Must the 7 Marketing Functions Work Together?
It’s natural that your general business goal is to make more sales, boost your ROI and increase revenue. But think of sales as that VCR and marketing as your videotape. You need effective marketing activities to drive sales. The two go hand-in-hand.
There are seven functions of marketing that go hand-in-hand, too. They build on one another so that you can draft a roadmap. It tells you where to concentrate your entire team’s efforts so that you can reach your general and specific company goals.
Once you understand the 7 functions of marketing. Then, you can tailor your marketers’ responsibilities to enhance your business. Then once everyone knows what you expect, it’s easier to show relevant KPIs and ROI.
Marketing is how you connect with your target market. There are countless functions of marketing that make that connection. Today, we pinpoint the 7 functions of marketing that stand out.
7 Core Principles of Marketing
You know that marketing is a necessary role. But once you’re shoulders-deep in your cutthroat industry, you lose focus on just how vital marketing is.
That’s not always your fault.
As a business owner, you have a lot of thoughts racing through your head at all hours, even after you get home for the night:
Budget cuts. Top talent retention. Workplace morale and energy. Productivity levels. Sales quotas.
As a marketer, you have hyper-specific thoughts always circulating the four corners of your mind. But they race just the same:
Upcoming campaigns. Stagnant engagement. Marketing info management.
We’re here today to refocus your attention on the 7 functions of marketing. Dedicate yourself to understanding them. Then, you’ll know how to custom-fit them to your exclusive business and end up with compelling strategies.
1. Promotion
1. PromotionIt will not surprise you that your promotional campaigns come in at the top of the 7 functions of the marketing list.
Promotion is how you educate your target market. As a result, you build brand awareness and generate more leads that you can see through until the end.
You have countless ways to promote your brand, its products or its services. There’s social media and advertising. You might prefer email, influencer and content marketing. If you’re doing it right, you use a mixture of several.
Promotion is the way you introduce your brand’s name to your market.
It’s also one of the main ways that many of your internal departments collaborate. With promotional strategies, your public relations department works with advertising. Advertising turns to your sales team to keep the train on the right track.
When it stands alone, promotion is a key element in the marketing mix. But it can’t go very far without some help. Combined with the other marketing functions, it shoots your brand to the top and cultivates brand awareness.
2. Selling
Nurturing your customers is crucial. But you might think that it is just a task for your customer service department, and that’s where you’re wrong.
Your marketing department nurtures your leads from day one. A marketer customizes client communication. They answer a customer’s question with a solution that only your company can offer. This lets your marketing team erase your competitors from your audience’s mind.
It’s fundamental for the selling process.
Your customer service department helps with existing customers. Your sales team actually sells. But your marketers? They make sure that you appeal to customers as individuals. They eliminate the generalized and pushy sales tactics that a lot of people associate with closing sales.
Marketing is your customer’s tour guide, all the way through the sales funnel. When your prospect is ready to transfer to a sales rep, they already know your product or service from the top of its head to the bottom of its toes. They see why your brand is the best out there.
3. Product Management
Your customers each have a deep desire for what they want and what they can find on the market. But it’s more than that; they need a specific product to solve a specific need. They might not even know about what they need yet, but your marketing department does. That’s one of the many features of marketing.
That’s why your marketers analyze the data surrounding your products when there’s a growth opportunity. They triple-check that your product touches on all of those customer needs. This happens when they conduct and research competitor analysis and communicate with prospects. It also happens when they incorporate support-team feedback.
Product management is why top brands introduce a new product into the market and you see it succeed.
4. Marketing Information Management
Data is one of the MVPs of marketing. As one of the 7 functions of marketing, marketing information management pops up.
Your marketing department combines specialized tools to identify buyer demographics and desires.
But they don’t keep it in a silo. All of the information they get from that data is worthless if they keep it all to themselves.
What are the market trends? Where do your ideal buyers work and play? Who is your top competitor right now and what do you know about them?
Once your marketers know every nitty-gritty detail, they turn the data into action items and key points. Then, they offer the information to the other appropriate internal departments. The result is a contoured and shared intel that everyone can reference for company growth and success.
5. Pricing
Without fail, newcomers to any industry think that pricing their products or services will be a breeze. That is, until they start the pricing process. Then things get a little stickier.
They have to hire marketers who conduct market research and competitive analysis. Then, their marketing department identifies their brand’s perceived value.
Any ongoing and future promotions and branding efforts must match the pricing.
The pricing process doesn’t stop there, either. What is your brand’s perceived value? How about its products and services? How much is the cost of production and delivery? Where is the fine line between price and cost? The questions go on and on.
For example, say you run a second-hand handbag store. No matter how popular or big your brand’s name, your audience perceives your product value differently than they do Louis Vuitton or Balenciaga.
6. Financing
Making sales is not the only way your business rakes in cash. That’s why the 7 functions of marketing establish financing as a feature.
With the right marketing, you secure loans and other types of funding.
“Why would my marketing team care about financing?”
That’s a common question. And it’s valid. But realize that any of your upcoming marketing campaigns have to find room in your quarterly or yearly budget. This is a cyclical process that feeds back into itself time and again.
Marketing efforts expand their reach and attract more buyers. That builds your brand’s reputation. In turn, external organizations are more willing to offer loans or other funding sources to secure your financial future.
7. Distribution
7. DistributionYour distribution channels, both potential and current ones, are plentiful. You can use physical or digital channels to market and sell your goods.
Use proper product alignment and you’ll choose the right channel every time, with 100 percent accuracy.
Distribution isn’t just in the realm of supply chain management. It overlaps with your marketing activities, too. After all, your marketers need to know where to sell and how to get them there.
That means you need to define your ideal buyer persona and how they first find your brand. And that doesn’t just happen once when you open your business for the first time. You have to align marketing efforts with distribution channels every time you launch a new product, promotion, or campaign.
Picture the following three steps or scenarios: Your marketing department does its research. You align your supply chain with your marketing tactics for a new release. Since your team did such a thorough job and laid out all the details, your supply chain is ready to fulfill the demand.
The logical conclusion: Your target audience is excited about the launch. They engage with your brand and build anticipation among their peers. You succeed.
Conclusion
You’re ready for that success. You’ve spent an infinite amount of time sweating for it. The 7 functions of marketing are an integral way to get there.
But you also cannot get there without a push. Sometimes, you have your blinders on when it comes to marketing and your individual path to business growth.
That’s why we push you onto the right track at Selling Revolution. We know that your brand is unique, just like us. Our name says it all: We revolutionize the way you sell for business success that lasts.
It’s not a matter of whether you want to excel; it’s a matter of when you want to get started. Book a call with us today and our seasoned professionals will revolutionize your business growth right away.